Martin Pearlman is to be thanked, this Christmas, for giving us a present of one of the happiest Messiahs on disc. The Boston Baroque account is quite the fastest of any I know (even among period performances), quite the most sprightly, in gently inflected recitative and uncontrived ornamentation, and with a soprano soloist in Karen Clift whose gleeful, confident belief culminates in quite the most evangelical ''I know that my Redeemer liveth'' around.
But, as Handel's compiler was aware in his pointing up of Biblical juxtapositions, there is no light without darkness, no salvation without sin, no life without death. After a while, the relentless good humour and scarcely varied pacing and texture of this performance become counterproductive, even a little wearing.
Hogwood (L'Oiseau-Lyre), and particularly Pinnock (Archiv Produktion), do not regard slow tempos as taboo, and give time and space for gravitas where it is appropriate. Pearlman, on the other hand, frolics through Overture, Pastoral Symphony, ''Behold the Lamb of God'' and all. His small band (fewer strings and single woodwind) provide a bright, but monochrome palette, limited still further by the total absence of male altos among either chorus or soloists. This chorus, though, it must be said, brings a refreshing breeze from the New World, cutting through the cliches of timbre and pronunciation which tend to stick, albeit unconsciously, to all-British performances.
The lack of distinctive vocal and instrumental colour does matter, though, in the light of the choice available. Gardiner (Philips) offers a boy angel; both Pinnock and Hickox (Chandos) countertenors; and Hogwood, who paints more vividly than any with his resources, offers two sopranos, boys' choir (his is the Foundling Hospital version) and, at last, one true contralto, invaluable for ''But who may abide?''.
Pearlman's team of vocal soloists is, nevertheless, accomplished and enjoyable. Victor Ledbetter, his baritone, may never succeed in raising the dead, but his voice is nimble, inky and always musical. No one, of course, shakes heaven and earth like John Tomlinson's God-as-Wotan (Pinnock), nor kindles the verbal imagination quite like Bryn Terfel (Hickox).
Catherine Robbin is Pearlman's mezzo, as she is Eliot Gardiner's. Although I find the register and timbre of the countertenor voice more cogent in much of what she has to sing, her refiner's fire is as flammable as any, simply through her intelligent exploitation of its flaming consonants. By the same token, the skill and imagination of the singer can ''Rejoice'' just as greatly without resorting to the dance-like 12/8 which Gardiner alone favours. Karen Clift's light, smiling soprano positively romps through this aria.
Bruce Fowler completes this likeable, if less than authoritative quartet with a lyric tenor of true comfort, even if he is somewhat less effective when required to shoot out his lips or break a potter's vessel. A good, but not a great Messiah.'